Yesterday I downloaded the 4.0 version of DriveHQ Backup. After the install I removed all backup tasks in order to recreate them from the ground up and now I'm experiencing extreme slow upload times. In the previous version uploads would reach up to 300-400, depending on the file type and possibl;e compression (I guess), while right now I'm maxing to about 49, but about 90% of the time uploads are between 2-6.

I've performed various speed tests on my internet connection and that seems to be as it should be, about 700kbps upload, same as before, when I reached upload times of 80 minimal and 300-400 when compression could do its work....

Any advice on how I can speed up the uploads? I do rememeber having set the cache size to 1000MB a few days ago. Could this be a problem?

Thanks,

Rick

4/17/2008 7:25:03 AM

DriveHQ Webmaster

(1098 posts)

Subject: Re: Slow uploads

Yesterday I downloaded the 4.0 version of DriveHQ Backup. After the install I removed all backup tasks in order to recreate them from the ground up and now I'm experiencing extreme slow upload times.

In most cases, you don't need to delete existing backup tasks after upgrading to Version 4.0.

If you have to delete old backup tasks, it is strongly recommended deleting them after you have re-created new backup tasks. This way, the upload speed tends to be many times faster than if you have deleted existing backup tasks.

In the previous version uploads would reach up to 300-400, depending on the file type and possibl;e compression (I guess), while right now I'm maxing to about 49, but about 90% of the time uploads are between 2-6.

We continue monitoring our server performance. And we have not noticed any performance issue. DriveHQ has virtually unlimited network bandwidth; your upload is not capped. In our tests, we can easily reach 300-500KB/sec upload speed; but we have a very big pipeline. (much bigger than T1, with T1, the max speed is only 180KB/sec without compression, usually 140KB/sec only.)

Please double check with your ISP. Also note 30-50KB/sec (= roughly 300-500K bps) is what you usually can get with home DSL / Cable Modem type of connections. DSL and Cable Modem are optimized for downloading, but their uploading bandwidth is much smaller.

Also note with the new version Online Backup, by default it only uses no more than 80% of your available bandwidth. This is to avoid it from using too much bandwidth or disk / CPU time; so with this new version, you can leave the backup tasks running in the background while you work on your computer for other tasks. You should not notice too much of performance degradation.

I've performed various speed tests on my internet connection and that seems to be as it should be, about 700kbps upload, same as before, when I reached upload times of 80 minimal and 300-400 when compression could do its work....

The upload speed is dependent on many factors. Your performace tests usually only apply when you upload a single very large file.

When you upload a lot of small files, there is a lot of overhead in making the connection, save the file info to database, etc. You can noticed the same issue even when you are copying files on your local disk.

Also, the speed is affected by the connection speed between your ISP to DriveHQ data center in California. (Usually the speed in US is fine).

DriveHQ has used a lot of ways to speed up uploading; we have used technologies to reduce small file overhead, compress files (when the files are compressible) and magic upload. Please try at different times, and possibly from different locations, and upload different types / sizes of files to get a better understanding.

Overall, the slow upload only affects the initial backup; so please be patient to wait for it to finish; once this is finished, subsequent backup is extremely fast.

Any advice on how I can speed up the uploads? I do rememeber having set the cache size to 1000MB a few days ago. Could this be a problem?